Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[Malthus]

To be fair - the immediate international situation has never been less risky for Israel than recently.

In the past, they faced military coalitions of most of their neighbours, who were (more or less) united and agreed among themselves that the defeat of Israel was a major goal.

Now, that alliance against them has been comprehensively broken. Lebanon and Syria have collapsed as countries, are in no position to seriously challenge Israel even if they wanted to. They have a peace deal with Egypt and Jordan that looks pretty solid. Indeed, Israel is now part of a kind of informal alliance with a bunch of Arab nations - who are far more concerned about the challenge posed by Iran and Turkey, then they are by Israel.

The Palestinian cause remains very popular with the Arab street, and it is likely this will continue, but the chances of Arab armies appearing to champion the Palestinian cause is receding into the past.

All of which makes Israel objectively safer than it has been in the past. Though it is of course still subject to terrorism, from both Palistinian factions, particularly Hamas, and from Israeli right wing extremists. The primary problem is Israel and Palestine's inability to reach anything like a comprehensive peace deal. People on the political left tend to point to Israel's relatively safe geopolitical position, and assign the blame for the stalled peace process to Israel, who could easily make more concessions. They also note, correctly, that Israel has taken the stalled peace process as licence to carve off bits of land that they want for themselves. Many on the Israeli right have given up on the peace process ever happening. There is a tendency to simply take what they want and then wall the rest off and forget about them.

What people on the political left largely overlook is why the peace process is stalled. Which is down to the Palestinians making demands that no Israeli leaders could ever accept - handing over their capital city to Palestine, and offering Palestinians an unfettered "right of return" to what is now Israel. The left also tends to overlook the various events that have discredited the peace process from the Israeli side - for example, the unilateral decision by Israel to evacuate Gaza, which ended disasterously with Hamas taking over the place and making it a citadel to launch attacks on Israel. This hardly endeared Israelis to making further unilateral concessions.

[Valmy]

It would just be nice if Israel did what the United States had asked them to do, much less the Palestinians.

[Malthus]

Israel irritates me because for over 25 years they have, for the most part, undermined and flaunted our efforts in the Middle East through their nationalistic land grabbing. And then I get mad at my government for continually letting Israel get away with it instead of playing hardball.

But hopefully with one of the key sources of all this malignance being removed this will stop.

Your efforts in the middle east have been horribly disasterous, without any aid in that from Israel.

The Iraq war has done more damage than any amount of Israeli land grabbing.

[Valmy]

Ok so Israel should just say fuck you US and expand their settlements when we are their biggest supporter? And they should do this because of Iraq? Ok dude, whatever.

[Malthus]

Ok so Israel should just say fuck you US and expand their settlements when we are their biggest supporter? And they should do this because of Iraq? Ok dude, whatever.

Not what I said. At all.

I think Israeli land grabbing is a terrible thing, and a real obstruction to peace in the region. As I pointed out in my post above.

I am just finding somewhat absurd the notion that Israel is undermining all the good the US is doing in the region.

The Israelis do what they want because the US is widely seen in the ME to be unreliable and easy to manipulate. That also explains the anxiety of certain gulf Arab states to form an alliance with Israel - and vice versa. A new US leader could easily wash their hands of the region, and dump them like Trump dumped the Kurds.

[viper37]

If you don't think this is superior to Egypt (which is run by a military dictatorship that overthrew an Islamic government) or Jordan (which is run by an actual heriditary monarch), you are delusional.

I think democracy is better.  I don't think the way some country do it are better than some of the lighter dictatorship.  When there were protests in Jordan, the govt didn't mow down the protestors, like Syria did.  Given how experiment in democracy always give these countries islamic govt that work as hard as they can to suppress democracy, I am not convinced a fully democratic Jordan would be in the region's best interests.

Btw, Jordan is a Constitutional monarchy, just like the Canada you love.  You don't get to pick your next King or Queen, nor do you get to pick your next Governor General or Lieutenant, errr.. sorry, Lefftenant  Governor.  

It's not absolute monarchy à la Louis XIV, the King can still be overriden.  He's a tad more powerful than the Canadian Prime Minister under a majority govt, but not by that much.  The major difference obviously is the people do not vote for their government.  But so far, for a non democracy, it has done some good. 

There isn't a cast of people caught between two zones, not citizens but still subject to the authority of the government that may decide it needs their lands the next morning and force them out of their homes.  Official language is Arabic while Israël is now strictly Hebrew, as a way to reinforce the idea that Arabis-Israelis aren't true citizens of the country.  There's freedom of religion and independants tribunals.

All in all, not bad-at-all.

[viper37]

What people on the political left largely overlook is why the peace process is stalled. Which is down to the Palestinians making demands that no Israeli leaders could ever accept - handing over their capital city to Palestine, and offering Palestinians an unfettered "right of return" to what is now Israel. The left also tends to overlook the various events that have discredited the peace process from the Israeli side - for example, the unilateral decision by Israel to evacuate Gaza, which ended disasterously with Hamas taking over the place and making it a citadel to launch attacks on Israel. This hardly endeared Israelis to making further unilateral concessions.

I'm not of the left.  At least, I don't consider myself of the left.

You make fair points, obviously.  You just forget that it takes 2 to tango.  Israel made unreasonable demands too, like taking 2/3 of the West Bank and leaving Gaza overcrowded.  Or with the current government, not giving Palestinians full independance and no guarantees that it won't take their lands and their homes, even after a treaty is signed.

The peace process is stalled because the Palestinians want everyone who wishes it back in Israel and Israel does not even want to leave a tiny bit of parcel in Palestinian hands and has kept colonization active all the while they were negotiating for peace.

Hamas doesn't want peace anyway, they'll go as far as to acknowledge there is a land called Israel and they'll agree to an independant Palestine sitting side by side with an Israel land while they work on expelling the Jews to the sea.

No matter what we discuss, these people don't want peace.  The last Israeli head of state who talked of peace was shot by his own people.  Any Palestinian leader who talked of peace without a right of return would get shot by his own people.

[viper37]

I am just finding somewhat absurd the notion that Israel is undermining all the good the US is doing in the region.

Let's just say it ain't helping.  Israel's policies are creating major resentment amongst the arab populace and the US is constantly defending said policies and shielding Israel from any negative consequence.

I think sometimes, the US could use some of its muscle to push Israel to bend another way, rather than tacitelly accepting everything.

[Razgovory]

I'm always surprised by people who have no use for theocracy in their country but are basically okay with it in Gaza.

Pretty sure they would be happy if gaza were wiped out.

He's talking about you, dude.

That's a bizzare leap if so.
The sort of thing you expect of the fundies we are laughing at - you don't think Israel is an absolutely perfect and saintly country that should be supported beyond question in everything then you must love hamas and want them to rule here too.

I didn't say anything like this.  Let me put it this way:  Genocidal nationalism, and despotic theocracy are an intolerable evil in both the West and the Middle East.        If it is evil at home it is still evil abroad.  Hell, many of the anti-Zionists believe theocracy is bad in the Middle East.  Or at least when ISIS did it a few years back.  The condemnation and hostility towards theocracy evaporates if the theocrats turn their rockets toward Tel Aviv.

Nobody is saying Israel is perfect.  I was horrified by the latest dust-up and consider the fault to fall squarely on the Israelis.  Israel needs to stop the settlements and crack down on the settlers.  Yet this outrage must be tempered by the knowledge that Fatah, Hezbollah and Hamas are much, much worse.  ISIS gave us taste of what a final victory of the Palestinians would look like.

[Malthus]

If you don't think this is superior to Egypt (which is run by a military dictatorship that overthrew an Islamic government) or Jordan (which is run by an actual heriditary monarch), you are delusional.

I think democracy is better.  I don't think the way some country do it are better than some of the lighter dictatorship.  When there were protests in Jordan, the govt didn't mow down the protestors, like Syria did.  Given how experiment in democracy always give these countries islamic govt that work as hard as they can to suppress democracy, I am not convinced a fully democratic Jordan would be in the region's best interests.

Btw, Jordan is a Constitutional monarchy, just like the Canada you love.  You don't get to pick your next King or Queen, nor do you get to pick your next Governor General or Lieutenant, errr.. sorry, Lefftenant  Governor.  

It's not absolute monarchy à la Louis XIV, the King can still be overriden.  He's a tad more powerful than the Canadian Prime Minister under a majority govt, but not by that much.  The major difference obviously is the people do not vote for their government.  But so far, for a non democracy, it has done some good. 

There isn't a cast of people caught between two zones, not citizens but still subject to the authority of the government that may decide it needs their lands the next morning and force them out of their homes.  Official language is Arabic while Israël is now strictly Hebrew, as a way to reinforce the idea that Arabis-Israelis aren't true citizens of the country.  There's freedom of religion and independants tribunals.

All in all, not bad-at-all.

I think your view of Jordan is very ... optimistic.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/04/05/jordan-in-turmoil/amp/

As for Jordanian treatment of Palestinians ... have you ever heard of "Black September"? Makes the current Israeli actions in Gaza look like a minor scuffle.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September

[Malthus]

What people on the political left largely overlook is why the peace process is stalled. Which is down to the Palestinians making demands that no Israeli leaders could ever accept - handing over their capital city to Palestine, and offering Palestinians an unfettered "right of return" to what is now Israel. The left also tends to overlook the various events that have discredited the peace process from the Israeli side - for example, the unilateral decision by Israel to evacuate Gaza, which ended disasterously with Hamas taking over the place and making it a citadel to launch attacks on Israel. This hardly endeared Israelis to making further unilateral concessions.

I'm not of the left.  At least, I don't consider myself of the left.

You make fair points, obviously.  You just forget that it takes 2 to tango.  Israel made unreasonable demands too, like taking 2/3 of the West Bank and leaving Gaza overcrowded.  Or with the current government, not giving Palestinians full independance and no guarantees that it won't take their lands and their homes, even after a treaty is signed.

The peace process is stalled because the Palestinians want everyone who wishes it back in Israel and Israel does not even want to leave a tiny bit of parcel in Palestinian hands and has kept colonization active all the while they were negotiating for peace.

Hamas doesn't want peace anyway, they'll go as far as to acknowledge there is a land called Israel and they'll agree to an independant Palestine sitting side by side with an Israel land while they work on expelling the Jews to the sea.

No matter what we discuss, these people don't want peace.  The last Israeli head of state who talked of peace was shot by his own people.  Any Palestinian leader who talked of peace without a right of return would get shot by his own people.

Disagree. The lunatics don't want peace, but they don't represent everyone.

Rather, the Israelis do largely want peace, but after endless rejections are willing to live without it. The current status quo benefits them far more than it does Palestinians.

[Malthus]

I am just finding somewhat absurd the notion that Israel is undermining all the good the US is doing in the region.

Let's just say it ain't helping.  Israel's policies are creating major resentment amongst the arab populace and the US is constantly defending said policies and shielding Israel from any negative consequence.

I think sometimes, the US could use some of its muscle to push Israel to bend another way, rather than tacitelly accepting everything.

The US could, and I too wish they would discourage the Israelis from expanding settlements ... but there is no way the Israelis would ever give up Jerusalem, or agree to a self-destructive 'right of return'. And these are minimum Palestinian demands!

[DGuller]

From everything that I heard about Jordan's monarchy, it sounds like a perfect model of governance for a Middle Eastern country.  To be fair, though, my only knowledge of the matter comes from King Abdullah's CNN interview, so there may be other opinions on the matter.

[grumbler]

The status quo has always benefitted Israel, and that's why there's been no Israeli government desire to permanently settle the Palestinian question.  The Palestinian leadership likewise has seldom been interested in a permanent settlement, because that would work against their own crony system based on scarcity.   It takes a lot more blood than has been spilled so far to gag self-satisfied politicians.

[Josquius]

]

I didn't say anything like this.  Let me put it this way:  Genocidal nationalism, and despotic theocracy are an intolerable evil in both the West and the Middle East.        If it is evil at home it is still evil abroad.  Hell, many of the anti-Zionists believe theocracy is bad in the Middle East.  Or at least when ISIS did it a few years back.  The condemnation and hostility towards theocracy evaporates if the theocrats turn their rockets toward Tel Aviv.

Nobody is saying Israel is perfect.  I was horrified by the latest dust-up and consider the fault to fall squarely on the Israelis.  Israel needs to stop the settlements and crack down on the settlers.  Yet this outrage must be tempered by the knowledge that Fatah, Hezbollah and Hamas are much, much worse.  ISIS gave us taste of what a final victory of the Palestinians would look like.

I don't think you understand the bulk of mainstream western critics of Israel.
Nobody wants a "final victory or the Palestinians", the very idea of it is mad, it just isn't going to happen. It isn't 1970 any longer, and it's pretty obvious wiping a nation off the map is not a great idea.

The Palestinian government is worse than the Israeli government - a very iffy argument. Pretty straight faced white man's burdenish. Only without the positive spin of there being any intent to help the less developed people.
Palestine as a country in perpetual crisis and hanging on by a thread will naturally tend towards extremists. For any criticism of the political situation in Palestine some of the blame must point Israels way. Regardless its irrelevant to the whole issue, the Palestinian people deserve their independence no matter what.

The fact of the matter is both sides are pretty dickish. But in that sort of situation then it's the biggest and strongest dick that you condemn the most. They're by far the ones behaving the worst at the moment. That if the shoe was on the other foot Palestine would be worse is irrelevant as it's not and isn't going to be.
That Israel is supposed to be a western Liberal democracy and does what it does makes them all the more worthy of criticism - and more likely to actually be swayed.
The bulk of the responsibility for making moves in the peace process is on Israel. Agency is theirs. The Palestinians are such a small player in their own crisis that stuff like the settlements doesn't even involve them, it's entirely on Israels head to stop doing that.